Latest / Legally Brunette / Killer Thriller: Nicole Brown Simpson’s Ex Speaks: Keith Zlomsowitch on Stalking, Sex & The O.J. Trial

Transcript

Killer Thriller: Nicole Brown Simpson’s Ex Speaks: Keith Zlomsowitch on Stalking, Sex & The O.J. Trial · Legally Brunette

0:06
Speaker 1: Amy roboc and TJ.
0:07
Speaker 2: Holmes present Killer Thriller with your host Alisa Donovan. Hey, everyone,
0:15
Speaker 2: Elisa Donovan here back with a new episode of Killer Thriller. Today,
0:20
Speaker 2: we are talking about a very familiar title, one that
0:24
Speaker 2: to say I am obsessed with would be an understatement.
0:28
Speaker 1: It was known as the Trial of.
0:30
Speaker 2: The Century, the People versus oj Simpson American crime story.
0:35
Speaker 2: But we are quickly moving beyond the courtroom and into
0:37
Speaker 2: the private spaces where fear, control and violence lived long
0:41
Speaker 2: before the quote Trial of the Century began. Our guest
0:45
Speaker 2: today is Keith Slamsowitch. Keith intimately knows the people involved.
0:50
Speaker 2: His new book, Stocked, tells a deeply personal account of
0:54
Speaker 2: his relationship with Nicole Brown Simpson and the years he
0:57
Speaker 2: says they were both targeted by Ojson Simpson. Keith wasn't
1:01
Speaker 2: a witness in the courtroom. He was a witness in
1:04
Speaker 2: real life, seeing behavior he now describes as stalking and intimidation,
1:09
Speaker 2: and living with the belief that he could have been
1:11
Speaker 2: killed himself. For more than three decades, Keith stayed quiet.
1:16
Speaker 2: Now he's speaking publicly for the first time about what
1:19
Speaker 2: he saw, what he felt, and what still lingers from
1:22
Speaker 2: the crime, the trial, and its aftermath.
1:26
Speaker 1: Okay, thank you so much for being here.
1:28
Speaker 3: Keith, Thank you for having me.
1:30
Speaker 1: Lisa.
1:31
Speaker 2: I want to acknowledge straight away that this is really
1:34
Speaker 2: the first time that I'm actually speaking with someone who
1:38
Speaker 2: was so intimately involved with and connected to the main
1:41
Speaker 2: human beings in this devastating case. So I know it's
1:47
Speaker 2: been thirty years since Nicole was murdered, but I want
1:51
Speaker 2: to just say I'm sorry for that loss, and I'm
1:55
Speaker 2: sorry for what I'm sure has been a painful time.
2:00
Speaker 3: Thank you for that.
2:02
Speaker 1: So let's just start.
2:04
Speaker 2: You know, you are so close to her, Can you
2:06
Speaker 2: just tell us the who was Nicole? And what was
2:09
Speaker 2: your relationship like with her?
2:12
Speaker 3: Well started off when I met her. I didn't know
2:15
Speaker 3: who she was. I just was smitten by her instantly
2:18
Speaker 3: when I met her and Aspen, Colorado, and it just
2:21
Speaker 3: sort of snowballed from there. We spent some time together
2:23
Speaker 3: that weekend, and I went to Los Angeles several months later,
2:28
Speaker 3: and we picked up where we sort of left off
2:30
Speaker 3: in Aspen, and we started to get to know each
2:32
Speaker 3: other better and went through the dating process as people do,
2:35
Speaker 3: and I started to learn more about her what a
2:40
Speaker 3: incredible person that she was. She was a fantastic mother.
2:44
Speaker 3: She was just so much fun to be around. What
2:46
Speaker 3: people don't really know about Nicole is she really only
2:49
Speaker 3: had about an eighteen month window where she wasn't totally
2:53
Speaker 3: under OJ's control, so to speak. Right, they met when
2:57
Speaker 3: she was eighteen. He sort of kept her under wraps
3:00
Speaker 3: for those years until she separated and went through the
3:03
Speaker 3: divorce process. Is when I met her, and she was
3:07
Speaker 3: kind of experiencing becoming a woman, you know, getting things
3:11
Speaker 3: that most people do in their twenties as they're growing
3:15
Speaker 3: and maturing, and she was kind of doing that a
3:17
Speaker 3: little later in life because she had a little freedom.
3:19
Speaker 3: So I was just I was so excited to be
3:22
Speaker 3: there for that portion of her life. And I'm just
3:25
Speaker 3: fortunate that I got to know her during that period.
3:27
Speaker 3: But she was just a phenomenal person.
3:29
Speaker 1: Was she living on Bundy at the time that you
3:32
Speaker 1: guys dated.
3:33
Speaker 3: She was living on gret And Agree, Greta Agree. I
3:37
Speaker 3: was skiing one day in Aspen, Colorado, and I had
3:39
Speaker 3: numerous restaurants. I had two and Aspen and three in
3:42
Speaker 3: Los Angeles. In Los Angeles, obviously the two Messalunas Messaluna,
3:46
Speaker 3: brond woman worked and one in Beverly Hills. And I
3:48
Speaker 3: also had the Monkey Bar, which was a pretty famous
3:51
Speaker 3: place back in the nineties. Yes, we'll remember it.
3:54
Speaker 1: I remember it well.
3:55
Speaker 3: I had Masaluna and Aspen, Colorado. What turns out, Messaluna
3:58
Speaker 3: was Nicole's favorite restaurant and she lived right down the
4:01
Speaker 3: street from it. So when I saw her the first
4:04
Speaker 3: day and Aspen on the ski deck, not knowing who
4:07
Speaker 3: she was, just knowing that she was the most beautiful
4:10
Speaker 3: person I had ever seen, so I approached her. I
4:13
Speaker 3: just walked right up to her and sort of wedged
4:16
Speaker 3: my way into their conversation. Found an inn when I
4:19
Speaker 3: heard me mentioned and started to talk to her, and
4:23
Speaker 3: we got to know each other a little bit. Then
4:24
Speaker 3: I invited her and for dinner that night, but she
4:27
Speaker 3: was living. She just left oj and she told me
4:30
Speaker 3: that afternoon that she had come to Aspen to get
4:33
Speaker 3: away from her abusive husband. She didn't mention who he was. Wow,
4:37
Speaker 3: the subject kind of came up because I'm a golfer,
4:40
Speaker 3: and we talked about golf a little bit. She said
4:42
Speaker 3: her husband was a member of Riviera Country Club, which
4:46
Speaker 3: most people know out there it's pretty exclusive, so I
4:49
Speaker 3: know most of the members, so I know who is he?
4:53
Speaker 3: Maybe I might know him? She goes, oh, you know him.
4:56
Speaker 3: I didn't mention his name till later that evening, after
5:00
Speaker 3: we went out dancing and aspen and tried to get
5:02
Speaker 3: to know each other a little bit and hung out,
5:04
Speaker 3: and it came up through the course of the evening
5:07
Speaker 3: only because a friend of mine who worked at the
5:09
Speaker 3: lounge that we were in, came up to me when
5:12
Speaker 3: Nick was on the dance floor and I'll refer to
5:15
Speaker 3: her as Nick because that's what I always called her,
5:18
Speaker 3: and said, that's that's OJ's wife. And I was like, oh,
5:21
Speaker 3: there you go, you know, so wow. And when she
5:24
Speaker 3: came back to the table, I just sort of asked
5:27
Speaker 3: her about it, and she went, well, now you know,
5:29
Speaker 3: cats out of the bed. But I learned more about
5:33
Speaker 3: their relationship obviously as our relationship moved forward and the
5:36
Speaker 3: stalking incidents started.
5:38
Speaker 2: Right right, So she I love that you didn't know
5:43
Speaker 2: who she was at first, and I'm sure that was
5:45
Speaker 2: probably quite refreshing to her, you know, to have someone
5:48
Speaker 2: that didn't that was approaching her simply because of the
5:53
Speaker 2: you know, connection you felt to her. Rather than him.
5:57
Speaker 2: Were you so, did she tell you straight away? It
6:00
Speaker 2: sounds like she did straight away say that he was
6:03
Speaker 2: abusive to her.
6:05
Speaker 1: And did it feel to you like dangerous?
6:10
Speaker 2: You know, I know this is that tragic thing of
6:14
Speaker 2: people who are in these sorts of relationships. Sometimes you
6:17
Speaker 2: just don't know how extreme it really could be or
6:22
Speaker 2: can be. And did you feel like she was afraid
6:25
Speaker 2: at all?
6:26
Speaker 3: Initially she mentioned that he was an abusive husband, ex husband.
6:31
Speaker 3: She referred to him as ex husband because they were
6:34
Speaker 3: no force process, but she told me he was abusive
6:38
Speaker 3: and that's why she had come to Aspen to get
6:40
Speaker 3: away from him. She had brought the children with her.
6:43
Speaker 3: She just needed kind of an escape to clear her head.
6:45
Speaker 3: And she was in the process of moving into the
6:48
Speaker 3: Gretna Greenhouse out of Rockingham, the famous house that we
6:51
Speaker 3: owned them where they lived together. But when I got
6:55
Speaker 3: to Los Angeles two months later and we sort of
6:57
Speaker 3: picked up the dating process, went through all the stages
7:01
Speaker 3: that people go through as they're getting to know each other.
7:03
Speaker 3: The stalking began instantly from oj So the second night
7:07
Speaker 3: the first well, the first night I was in town,
7:10
Speaker 3: I went to visit her at her house and She
7:13
Speaker 3: started to tell me a little bit about their past,
7:16
Speaker 3: not too much in depth, but it was weird because
7:18
Speaker 3: the phone kept ringing. You know. We went out and
7:20
Speaker 3: got in the jikuzi and we were just talking and
7:23
Speaker 3: the phone started ringing incessantly and she just sort of went, there,
7:27
Speaker 3: he is right, So we kind of blew that off.
7:30
Speaker 3: The second night I was in town, she came to
7:33
Speaker 3: one of my restaurants with some lady friends. We had
7:36
Speaker 3: a big event on Tuesday nights at massaloona Beverly Hills.
7:38
Speaker 3: It was sort of a celebrity thing, and her girlfriends
7:42
Speaker 3: had heard about it, so I invited her to bring
7:44
Speaker 3: her her group down and grab a table, and we
7:47
Speaker 3: were hanging out having a good time, and almost immediately
7:49
Speaker 3: OJ showed up, you know, and you could tell by
7:52
Speaker 3: the tone the way he zipped in the valet at
7:55
Speaker 3: a high rate of speed and screeched on his brakes
7:58
Speaker 3: and jumped out of the car, came directly in, right
8:00
Speaker 3: up to our table and slammed his hands down and
8:03
Speaker 3: stared me in the eyes and said, I'm O J.
8:06
Speaker 3: Simpson and she's still my wife. So that was my
8:08
Speaker 3: first face to face interaction.
8:10
Speaker 1: Oh my god, yeah.
8:12
Speaker 3: And then she started to open up to me as
8:17
Speaker 3: more and more events of stalking took place, started to
8:20
Speaker 3: tell me more and more in depth about things she
8:23
Speaker 3: had endured through her relationship with oj.
8:27
Speaker 2: He I would imagine that he just was following her
8:30
Speaker 2: all the time.
8:33
Speaker 3: Well, he showed up all the time. So we deduced
8:36
Speaker 3: one of two things. Either he was following or spying
8:39
Speaker 3: on us, or somebody else doing it right, But there
8:42
Speaker 3: was a third caveat to the whole thing. We were
8:44
Speaker 3: convinced after a period of time that one of her
8:47
Speaker 3: inner circle was divulging. Oh right, actually, and I talk
8:54
Speaker 3: about this in the book, and I actually mentioned the
8:57
Speaker 3: name of the person. But we were convinced after several
9:00
Speaker 3: of these events, we narrowed it down to one person,
9:04
Speaker 3: and we sort of set that person up really yeah,
9:08
Speaker 3: that we were going, you're going.
9:09
Speaker 1: To tell us who that is. You're not going to
9:11
Speaker 1: tell us who that is.
9:13
Speaker 3: I'll tell you what their initial the initials one of
9:17
Speaker 3: her friends, one of her friends who was involved in
9:21
Speaker 3: that circle but was also friends with oj. So we
9:24
Speaker 3: were convinced that she was feeding Oja information about where
9:27
Speaker 3: we were at on certain occasions. There were other occasions
9:29
Speaker 3: where we know we were being basically just spied on.
9:33
Speaker 3: We would be hanging out at the house watching a
9:36
Speaker 3: movie for hours on end, and the minute we turned
9:39
Speaker 3: off the TV, the phone would start ringing. So someone
9:42
Speaker 3: was watching us at Nicoles.
9:43
Speaker 1: That is just diabolical.
9:46
Speaker 3: Well, and then there's obviously the very famous incident where
9:49
Speaker 3: he spied on us having sex through the window of
9:53
Speaker 3: her house.
9:54
Speaker 2: Please tell us how I can't imagine what that would
10:00
Speaker 2: feel like. I mean, did you guys, like, what did
10:03
Speaker 2: you do when you realized.
10:05
Speaker 3: Well, it was a whole sequence of events because it
10:09
Speaker 3: was the first time that we had made love and
10:11
Speaker 3: it was very special. So it was several weeks into
10:13
Speaker 3: our relationship. We were taking things kind of slow. We
10:16
Speaker 3: were dating the process. Nick was very cognizant of, you know,
10:20
Speaker 3: her children and her children's feelings, and she had not
10:23
Speaker 3: been with another man. She had been since she was
10:26
Speaker 3: eighteen years old, so to her was it was a
10:31
Speaker 3: strange feeling. She was trying to experience those emotions. Again. Sure,
10:36
Speaker 3: we were taking us slow, and I was in no hurry.
10:38
Speaker 3: I was madly in love from the men and I
10:40
Speaker 3: met her. So probably the third or so incident of
10:43
Speaker 3: stalking fourth maybe. We decided to go out one night
10:47
Speaker 3: to a comedy club in Los Angeles and a friend
10:50
Speaker 3: of hers and Ojay's was performing. Byron Allen was doing
10:55
Speaker 3: at the time, and he was performing with several other comedians.
10:58
Speaker 3: So Nick called Byron and said, Keith and I'd like
11:00
Speaker 3: to come by. He had a table waiting for us.
11:03
Speaker 3: It was awesome. We had a great time, and after
11:05
Speaker 3: the show we decided to go to Roxbury do some dancing.
11:08
Speaker 3: We were in West Hollywood, you know the routine. You're
11:11
Speaker 3: from the area. We stopped by Roxbury and we weren't
11:15
Speaker 3: there very long, and Nick turned to me and said,
11:20
Speaker 3: he's here, and we just we had been through this
11:23
Speaker 3: numerous times at restaurants and bars, and they had supposedly
11:27
Speaker 3: had this agreement handshake agreement that if the two of
11:31
Speaker 3: them ended up in the same place together a restaurant, bar,
11:34
Speaker 3: or whatever it mean, the first person there basically had
11:37
Speaker 3: the right to stay, second person to show up should
11:40
Speaker 3: do the right thing and leave and not make the
11:42
Speaker 3: other one uncomfortable. He never abided by that, obviously, so
11:46
Speaker 3: when we realized he was at Roxbury, we sort of
11:50
Speaker 3: knew that it was by design. So Nick just looked
11:53
Speaker 3: at me and said, you know, sugar head and exhaled
11:57
Speaker 3: like I just said, what do you want to do?
12:01
Speaker 3: Let's just get out of here, and I said, I agree.
12:03
Speaker 3: Let's we had a fun night, you know, I said,
12:06
Speaker 3: let us go home. So we jumped in the car.
12:09
Speaker 3: We had a down sunset back to the Gretona Green house.
12:12
Speaker 3: We went inside, put on some music, lit a few candles,
12:16
Speaker 3: opened a bottle of wine, and things happened, you know.
12:20
Speaker 1: So he followed you guys from Roxbury.
12:23
Speaker 3: We didn't know it at the time. So we made love
12:26
Speaker 3: for the first time and it was spectacular, and I
12:28
Speaker 3: talked about it in the book. And I stayed till
12:32
Speaker 3: about three o'clock in the morning or so, because we
12:35
Speaker 3: had this agreement that I would never stay over the children.
12:39
Speaker 3: She did not want her children to wake up in
12:40
Speaker 3: the morning and have another man in the house. That's
12:43
Speaker 3: just how she looked at it, and I understood completely.
12:46
Speaker 3: So that's the latest I had ever stayed over there,
12:48
Speaker 3: and it was because of the circumstances. So about three
12:51
Speaker 3: issue or so, I walked out of her house. My
12:54
Speaker 3: car was parked on the street in Brentwood on Bretona Green.
12:58
Speaker 3: Really quiet neighbor. Yeah, and I'm going to describe the
13:01
Speaker 3: sequence events to you because it correlates directly with the
13:06
Speaker 3: night of the murders on Bundy. As I left the house,
13:10
Speaker 3: you had to exit the door, go down a long,
13:13
Speaker 3: dark sidewalk, through a courtyard, through a gate, through an
13:17
Speaker 3: iron gate, around another sidewalk, down a driveway to where
13:21
Speaker 3: my car was parked. And I remember it was so
13:25
Speaker 3: eerie that night, maybe because of what we had just
13:28
Speaker 3: been through. It was special to me, but my senses
13:31
Speaker 3: were really heightened at that time, and I just remember
13:34
Speaker 3: thinking to myself, it's just so silent and eerie out here.
13:39
Speaker 3: But I was happy because what it just transpired. So
13:43
Speaker 3: got in the car drove home, thinking not much of it.
13:46
Speaker 3: Next day, I showed up at Nick's house just to
13:49
Speaker 3: come over and say hi, as I usually did, and
13:52
Speaker 3: the kids were swimming in the pool with the nanny
13:54
Speaker 3: and Nick was out by the pool, so I came
13:56
Speaker 3: around the back of the house, and you know, we
13:58
Speaker 3: both kind of had smiles on our face. We were
14:00
Speaker 3: a little giddy from the night before, knowing what it transpired.
14:05
Speaker 3: And she mentioned something about her neck was kind of sore,
14:08
Speaker 3: so I said, just go in the backroom right here,
14:10
Speaker 3: and I'll give you a sort of quick massage, you know,
14:12
Speaker 3: see if I can straighten it out for you. So
14:14
Speaker 3: we walked into a back bedroom where there were French
14:17
Speaker 3: doors and long curtains, and it was a bedroom that
14:19
Speaker 3: was never used. It was a guest room that, oddly enough,
14:22
Speaker 3: I ended up moving into months later when I lived
14:25
Speaker 3: in Nicole's house as a friend after our dating relationship.
14:30
Speaker 3: But anyway, back to the original story. So as we're
14:33
Speaker 3: sitting on the bed and I'm sitting on top of
14:34
Speaker 3: the coal, within seconds, right through the door walks out Ja.
14:40
Speaker 3: He didn't come to the front door, didn't ring the
14:42
Speaker 3: bell the back door, knocking the door. He came around
14:45
Speaker 3: the side of the house through a little skinny sidewalk
14:48
Speaker 3: around the back, and came straight in the bedroom we
14:51
Speaker 3: were in, so he knew where we were at. And now,
14:54
Speaker 3: my god, I look up and here's this, you know,
14:58
Speaker 3: ginormous human being. O. J. Simpson, famous football player, ex wife, jealous,
15:04
Speaker 3: maniacal man, knowing the history of the abuse that she
15:09
Speaker 3: had told me as fire stalking events that we had
15:11
Speaker 3: standing right in front of us, angry, and I could
15:15
Speaker 3: see his eyes were black as coal. He was the
15:20
Speaker 3: veins were coming out of his head, and he was, Oh,
15:22
Speaker 3: look at you guys, Look at you guys. Look what
15:24
Speaker 3: you're doing. And he mentioned he had watched us and
15:27
Speaker 3: it was so quick.
15:28
Speaker 1: Oh he told you.
15:30
Speaker 3: Well, I didn't pick up on it right away. I
15:32
Speaker 3: sort of jumped up and I stood in between the cole.
15:35
Speaker 3: We both sort of got up. I stood in between
15:38
Speaker 3: the two of them, and he was, I want to
15:40
Speaker 3: talk to you alone. I want to talk to you
15:42
Speaker 3: alone to Nicole, and I stood my ground. I wouldn't
15:47
Speaker 3: have any part of it. And I said, I'm not
15:49
Speaker 3: leaving you alone with her. I don't trust you. And
15:54
Speaker 3: then I saw a different side of a man that
15:56
Speaker 3: I saw everything change. His face got crazy. He didn't
16:01
Speaker 3: like that, and Nick had told me later, Keith, you
16:05
Speaker 3: don't know, o Ja Simpson. There's two the one the
16:07
Speaker 3: public sees and the one only I see. Don't ever
16:10
Speaker 3: be left alone with that one. So all these things
16:12
Speaker 3: are going through my Oh God, and it's in the
16:15
Speaker 3: heat of the moment. So I refused to leave the room,
16:18
Speaker 3: and that was making him angrier and angrier and angrier.
16:20
Speaker 3: So eventually Nick, who was standing behind me, we were
16:24
Speaker 3: holding hands. She said, Keith, he's never He's not going
16:26
Speaker 3: to leave until he has a couple of minutes with
16:29
Speaker 3: me alone. She said, please just stay close to the door,
16:33
Speaker 3: but I need to be alone with him for a second.
16:35
Speaker 3: So I did. I left the bedroom shut the door,
16:38
Speaker 3: stood in the kitchen, which was very close by, so
16:40
Speaker 3: I could hear anything happened, because I was prepared to
16:43
Speaker 3: go right back in, and I could hear him yelling
16:46
Speaker 3: and reading her the Riot Act, but I wasn't really
16:49
Speaker 3: focusing on the words. So I was concerned. I was
16:54
Speaker 3: wondered about her safety. I was consumed about my own
16:57
Speaker 3: safety was going to happen. After five, six, seven minutes whatever,
17:01
Speaker 3: they came out of the bedroom together and he was
17:04
Speaker 3: in front of her, and he walked right up to
17:06
Speaker 3: me in the kitchen, and he extended his hand with
17:08
Speaker 3: this sort of sarcastic.
17:10
Speaker 1: Gesture, God, oh God, as if to.
17:12
Speaker 3: Shake my hand, which I did reach out and shake
17:15
Speaker 3: his hand. He said, you know, I'm I'm oj Simpson.
17:17
Speaker 3: I'm a very proud man, and disappeared as fast as this.
17:23
Speaker 3: And as he went out the door, Nick looked at me,
17:27
Speaker 3: and she was white as a ghost, and she went Keith,
17:31
Speaker 3: Oh my god, he watched everything we did last night.
17:34
Speaker 3: He saw as he watched everything we did, and we
17:37
Speaker 3: both just went, oh my god. So we immediately yeah,
17:41
Speaker 3: we immediately started looking at the windows, like how, where? What?
17:45
Speaker 3: How could that have even transpired? But at that moment
17:48
Speaker 3: we knew things would never be the same. We knew
17:52
Speaker 3: that there was there was no boundaries. Someone was willing
17:56
Speaker 3: to do that.
17:57
Speaker 2: Oh, I mean, it's it's truly diabolicle.
18:00
Speaker 3: And getting back to what I mentioned at the beginning
18:03
Speaker 3: of the story is that walk I took the night
18:06
Speaker 3: before at three o'clock in the morning down that if
18:08
Speaker 3: you just re examine the crime scene at Bundy YASSNDO.
18:13
Speaker 3: He came through a back iron gate, walked down a
18:16
Speaker 3: long dark sidewalk along the side of the house, came
18:20
Speaker 3: around the corner to the front of the room window yep,
18:23
Speaker 3: and was either looking in when she came out or
18:26
Speaker 3: was waiting for her to come out. But so eerily similar.
18:30
Speaker 3: And that's where the title of the book, that's where
18:32
Speaker 3: I got it. The book is all stalked. It could
18:35
Speaker 3: have been me. So when I saw what he was
18:38
Speaker 3: capable of after the murders, instantly all those things went
18:42
Speaker 3: through my mind.
18:57
Speaker 1: Where were you when you heard that she was murdered?
18:59
Speaker 1: And ron?
19:01
Speaker 3: I was in Atlanta. I had left Messaluna Restaurant Group,
19:05
Speaker 3: all the restaurants that I was in control of for
19:08
Speaker 3: all those years. I was branching out of my own
19:10
Speaker 3: to do my own thing, and I was in Atlanta
19:12
Speaker 3: looking for locations. I hadn't spoke to Nicole, and we
19:16
Speaker 3: can discuss this a little bit later as we get
19:18
Speaker 3: the timeline. But yeah, both to her in six months
19:22
Speaker 3: because of OJ, that famous nine one one call you
19:25
Speaker 3: here in October of ninety three. Yes, kicking in the
19:28
Speaker 3: door and screaming. That caused us to not speak again
19:33
Speaker 3: because because.
19:34
Speaker 2: She was afraid or because does she just go say.
19:38
Speaker 3: The whole premise of that night was because of me,
19:41
Speaker 3: and he took it out on her. He had my
19:44
Speaker 3: name had been brought up by somebody else on a
19:46
Speaker 3: movie set, a girl who knew me, who was trying
19:49
Speaker 3: to get back at me for some crazy reason. So
19:52
Speaker 3: she thought she fell OJ that I was with his wife,
19:56
Speaker 3: and she knew that would get to him because she
19:58
Speaker 3: was jealous of OJ. Don't even want to go into
20:00
Speaker 3: that part of the story. Yeah, OJ went home and
20:03
Speaker 3: took it down on Nicole. So he bust into her house,
20:05
Speaker 3: threatening you can hear it.
20:07
Speaker 1: Yes, it's a horrific.
20:09
Speaker 3: Ripped up her phone book, tore up all the pictures
20:12
Speaker 3: of us. I didn't know about those nine one one
20:16
Speaker 3: calls until the trial, and they weren't at least they
20:20
Speaker 3: weren't published.
20:21
Speaker 1: She didn't tell you, Nicole, didn't.
20:23
Speaker 3: Tell you tell me about the nine one one call.
20:24
Speaker 3: Because what happened was the day that this happened. I
20:29
Speaker 3: came home from doing something and asked, when I was
20:30
Speaker 3: running errands, and I see my voicemail on my home
20:34
Speaker 3: answering machine if you remember those, Yeah, they the button
20:37
Speaker 3: nay O J. Simpson calling me from the set of
20:42
Speaker 3: the movie with this unnamed girl. Hey, Keith, it's your
20:46
Speaker 3: old pell OJ here, you know, on my home answering machine.
20:50
Speaker 3: So my immediate reaction was, oh, Nick, Nick, because I
20:55
Speaker 3: know how he felt about me, and Nick and I
20:59
Speaker 3: had long conversations about it, and they were in the
21:00
Speaker 3: middle of trying their reconciliation that ended up costing her
21:04
Speaker 3: her life. So we had not been speaking very frequently
21:08
Speaker 3: as we had in the past. We talked every day
21:10
Speaker 3: in the past, so they.
21:11
Speaker 1: Were trying to reconcile their marriage.
21:14
Speaker 3: They were trying to that started in on Easter of
21:18
Speaker 3: ninety three, they decide. He showed up at her parents'
21:21
Speaker 3: house unexpected, uninvited, because he knew she'd be there with
21:26
Speaker 3: the kids. So he cornered her down at and gave
21:30
Speaker 3: her the whole I've been. I've been, you know, I've
21:35
Speaker 3: been to therapy, I've changed. Let me show you who
21:38
Speaker 3: I am. I really want you back. Let's go away
21:41
Speaker 3: for the weekend. So it basically, you know, whisked her
21:44
Speaker 3: away to Mexico. The parents watched the kids and got
21:48
Speaker 3: her alone down there. She called me as soon as
21:50
Speaker 3: they got back, and it was kind of a weird
21:52
Speaker 3: conversation because I had talked to her in two or
21:54
Speaker 3: three days, which is very unusual, right where you've been.
21:57
Speaker 3: And she's like, I went to Mexico. And I was like, wow,
22:00
Speaker 3: really with who? And she's like, You're not gonna believe it.
22:03
Speaker 3: And I started guessing a few names, and he was
22:07
Speaker 3: last on the list. I would have guessed, but she
22:10
Speaker 3: told me after I ran out of guess this, she
22:13
Speaker 3: goes I went with OJ and I went, WHOA wait?
22:15
Speaker 3: What she told me how that happened, how he showed
22:18
Speaker 3: up the house and convinced her to go away, and
22:21
Speaker 3: she said, honestly, Keith, it wasn't that bad. We actually
22:25
Speaker 3: had a good time together. And he's told me all
22:29
Speaker 3: these things. You know, he's working towards and he's changed,
22:32
Speaker 3: and he wants to try a reconciliation. So that was
22:35
Speaker 3: an Easter of ninety three, and at that time Nick
22:38
Speaker 3: and I were just best friends. We weren't in a
22:40
Speaker 3: romnic relationship anymore because of OJ.
22:42
Speaker 1: Yeah.
22:43
Speaker 3: So several months later, in October is when the nine
22:47
Speaker 3: to one one tapes happened. So they're reconciling from Easter
22:50
Speaker 3: to October. October is when the nine one one tape
22:53
Speaker 3: blows up. And like I said, I didn't know about it.
22:56
Speaker 3: I knew about the voicemail my machine. So I called
22:58
Speaker 3: Nick right away, can't get hold her. So I'm like, oh,
23:01
Speaker 3: this isn't going to be good. Knowing elog feels all.
23:04
Speaker 3: So about three days later, finally I got a call
23:07
Speaker 3: back from Nicole and I could hear her voice that
23:10
Speaker 3: something was wrong, and I said, are you okay, babe?
23:12
Speaker 3: Are you okay? And she said, no, I'm not and
23:14
Speaker 3: I said, oh my god, I said, I had a voicemail.
23:17
Speaker 3: I knew something wasn't going to be right. And she,
23:20
Speaker 3: you know, she was like, Keith, it was it was bad.
23:22
Speaker 3: It was really bad. She didn't tell me it was
23:24
Speaker 3: a nine to one one call, but she said, I,
23:26
Speaker 3: you know, Keith, I'm really trying to follow through with this.
23:29
Speaker 3: I made the commitment to try this reconciliation. You know
23:33
Speaker 3: that all I ever really wanted was my family unit together,
23:36
Speaker 3: you know, the father of the kids, the whole thing.
23:39
Speaker 3: That's my dream. And I really got to give it
23:42
Speaker 3: one hundred percent. And you know how he feels about you,
23:46
Speaker 3: and you know that you make him crazy. I mean,
23:48
Speaker 3: these were exact words. And she said, this is the
23:51
Speaker 3: hardest thing I've had to say, but we just can't
23:54
Speaker 3: talk anymore. And I said, oh, oh my god. It
23:58
Speaker 3: broke my heart. And we spoke another couple of seconds
24:01
Speaker 3: and I said, Nick, you know, I'm so sorry about
24:04
Speaker 3: what has happened, and I love you. And we hung
24:08
Speaker 3: up the phone and the next time I saw her,
24:10
Speaker 3: I was holding her casket at her funeral.
24:12
Speaker 2: Ah, this is just heartbreaking, because this is the behavior.
24:18
Speaker 3: When I hear something more heartbreaking at the funeral, not
24:22
Speaker 3: having spoken to her in six to eight months, whatever
24:25
Speaker 3: period of time that was, still loving her, always having
24:28
Speaker 3: a place in my heart for thinking that they were
24:30
Speaker 3: going through the reconciliation process still because I wasn't in communication.
24:34
Speaker 3: Then the murder happens. The family contacts me right away.
24:38
Speaker 3: They asked me to be a pallbearer. I fly out
24:40
Speaker 3: from Atlanta immediately. I don't see the family immediately because
24:44
Speaker 3: they're in Orange County. I fly into LA the night
24:46
Speaker 3: before the funeral. It happened so quickly, so the first
24:50
Speaker 3: time I had face to face interaction was at the
24:52
Speaker 3: funeral when they got out of a limo and came
24:54
Speaker 3: over to hug me and kiss me. And the first
24:56
Speaker 3: thing they told me was they were talking about me
24:59
Speaker 3: that night at dinner that Nick had said she was
25:01
Speaker 3: going to surprise me that she was happy she was
25:04
Speaker 3: finally free of OJ And I believe me, neither her
25:08
Speaker 3: mother or sister said something about what about Keith? What
25:11
Speaker 3: happened to Keith? And she's like, I'm going to surprise him.
25:14
Speaker 3: And I didn't know if that meant I was going
25:16
Speaker 3: to get a phone call.
25:17
Speaker 2: Oh, you're speaking about the night at Massaluna when they
25:21
Speaker 2: left the night of the.
25:22
Speaker 3: Visures murdered, so she was told, and two hours later
25:27
Speaker 3: she was dead at OJ's hands. So imagine my motions
25:31
Speaker 3: holding the person I love and still standing next to
25:36
Speaker 3: the person who killed her because I'm still a free man.
25:39
Speaker 3: At the funeral. The bronco chase was the next day.
25:42
Speaker 2: Oh that's right, the timelight, So sorry. The bronco chase
25:45
Speaker 2: was the day after the funeral.
25:48
Speaker 3: I'm holding the casket of the woman I love. Her
25:51
Speaker 3: family's telling me I was on her mind the night
25:54
Speaker 3: she was murdered, after not seeing or talking to me
25:57
Speaker 3: for months, standing next to the guy who So if
26:02
Speaker 3: you can imagine for a minute, I try to describe
26:04
Speaker 3: it the best way I can, and in the book,
26:07
Speaker 3: hopefully the readers grasp that. I wrote the book in
26:09
Speaker 3: a first person narrative, so you really feel like you're
26:12
Speaker 3: going through it with me. You're walking through the steps
26:15
Speaker 3: and the emotions with me. I wanted to do it
26:17
Speaker 3: that way because I wanted people to understand how gut
26:21
Speaker 3: wrenching that was.
26:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, to be immediate in the moment.
26:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you heard that she was killed, did you
26:42
Speaker 2: think it was OJ?
26:43
Speaker 1: Did you immediately think it was him.
26:45
Speaker 3: The minute I heard it was a murder. You know,
26:49
Speaker 3: I heard the wife of Nicole, the wife of O. J.
26:51
Speaker 3: Simpson found dead initially with an I identified male. And
26:55
Speaker 3: that's another tie into the title. It could have been me.
26:59
Speaker 3: Everyone want it was me? About our dating history? Oh wow,
27:05
Speaker 3: this was kind of pre cell phone.
27:07
Speaker 2: Yes, people didn't have so much access to one another
27:10
Speaker 2: all the time.
27:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, no instant communication. So everybody's thought process. And my
27:15
Speaker 3: cousin who wrote the forward to the book, talks about
27:18
Speaker 3: his instantaneous reaction was it's Keith. Oh my god, it's Keith.
27:21
Speaker 3: Because Ron wasn't identified immediately. So shortly after, as the
27:25
Speaker 3: news broadcast started to become a little tighter, and I
27:28
Speaker 3: found out that it was indeed a murder, and that
27:31
Speaker 3: Ron Goldman was one of my employees.
27:33
Speaker 1: Yes, did you know Ron?
27:35
Speaker 3: Ron was hired right after post everybody else at Meslina
27:39
Speaker 3: Brent would were my employees that I had hired a
27:41
Speaker 3: new stew and got it, Bellow and all those people.
27:44
Speaker 3: So I just didn't have the chance to cross paths
27:47
Speaker 3: with Ron. I knew instantly at that point when I
27:51
Speaker 3: discovered it was a murder, it was a violent crime.
27:54
Speaker 3: I knew instantly that it was either him or someone
27:58
Speaker 3: he had put up to that he was responsible.
28:01
Speaker 1: Did her did her family think that at that point
28:03
Speaker 1: as well?
28:04
Speaker 3: Well? The funeral that discussion. We didn't talk about it at
28:07
Speaker 3: the funeral. The funeral was about Nick. Obviously, there was
28:11
Speaker 3: the mass and then the burial, so it was two parts,
28:14
Speaker 3: so several hours at the church in Brentwood, long drive
28:17
Speaker 3: down to the cemetery in Orange County, so everybody was
28:20
Speaker 3: talking a little bit, but we were We didn't talk
28:23
Speaker 3: much at the mass. In the cars going down there,
28:26
Speaker 3: we talked to whoever we were in the cars with.
28:28
Speaker 3: We got to the to the burial, same thing, it
28:31
Speaker 3: was all about Nick. We went back to the Brown's house,
28:35
Speaker 3: the close uh family and friends that were invited back
28:40
Speaker 3: to Nick's childhood home where the Brown family lived. Then
28:44
Speaker 3: you started to hear the actual discussions. Prior to that,
28:47
Speaker 3: I was driving my car with my best friend Ron Hardy,
28:50
Speaker 3: who was also a pall bearer who worked for me
28:52
Speaker 3: at the Monkey Bar, and Robin Greer, who was one
28:55
Speaker 3: of Nick's best friends. So we were in a car together,
28:58
Speaker 3: so we obviously talked about it the time, but we
29:01
Speaker 3: were with Chris and Bruce at the burial.
29:03
Speaker 1: Uh oh yeah.
29:05
Speaker 2: I feel like they were pretty clear that they thought
29:08
Speaker 2: he was guilty.
29:09
Speaker 3: They were with Fay. Faye was in the limo with them.
29:11
Speaker 3: So they turned to me at the funeral at the
29:14
Speaker 3: burial and said, let's stop, you know, at a burger
29:17
Speaker 3: joint or something to get something on the way back
29:18
Speaker 3: to Nick's house. It had been a long day. We
29:22
Speaker 3: were going back there, like I said, with the close
29:25
Speaker 3: family and friends, but we just stopped at a Jack
29:28
Speaker 3: in the Box of all places. So Fay was with them,
29:32
Speaker 3: and it was myself correct, Chris, Chris, and Bruce correct.
29:37
Speaker 3: As we were sitting in Jack in the Box, the
29:40
Speaker 3: subject was obviously starting to come up, and we were
29:43
Speaker 3: all looking at each other and we were saying the
29:45
Speaker 3: things you say, like you think he did it, yeah,
29:48
Speaker 3: and everybody was in agreement at that point. I got
29:51
Speaker 3: back to the Browns house after the Jack in the Box,
29:56
Speaker 3: I had to pull. I pulled Judita and one of
29:58
Speaker 3: the sisters I believed, many aside to a bedroom. At
30:02
Speaker 3: some point we were drinking tequila in honor of Nick.
30:05
Speaker 3: That was her thing, and everybody was trying to tell stories.
30:09
Speaker 3: You know, fun stuff, just to you know, try to
30:14
Speaker 3: break the awkwardness of it. But I felt so compelled
30:18
Speaker 3: because I knew what I knew. I knew the information
30:22
Speaker 3: and all the stuff we'd gone through, and a lot
30:24
Speaker 3: of stuff Nicole had told me that I don't think
30:26
Speaker 3: she might have even mentioned to her parents, certainly not
30:29
Speaker 3: her friends. She wasn't proud of the beatings. She wasn't
30:32
Speaker 3: proud of the way she let Oh Jay do some
30:34
Speaker 3: of that stuff. She told me, because we lived it,
30:37
Speaker 3: it was a shared experience.
30:39
Speaker 2: And also probably with the family, you know, there's a
30:41
Speaker 2: certain amount of they you have to try to hide things,
30:46
Speaker 2: right because they would probably immediately be saying you've got
30:50
Speaker 2: to go, You've got to leave, and she's trying to
30:52
Speaker 2: keep the family unit together. Is such a complex. It's
30:56
Speaker 2: just heartbreaking because this is so typical female of yeah,
31:03
Speaker 2: abusive behavior. It's just it's just devastating, and I feel like,
31:07
Speaker 2: I mean, we we're going to get into talking about
31:09
Speaker 2: the series as well, but one of the things that
31:12
Speaker 2: I'm going to ask you about that is do you
31:14
Speaker 2: feel like they you know, there's so much about the
31:18
Speaker 2: perpetrator in this series of people versus OJ and I
31:22
Speaker 2: do you feel like they really even give a sense
31:24
Speaker 2: of Nicole in this show. It feels like she's sort
31:27
Speaker 2: of secondary to the entire thing.
31:30
Speaker 3: They barely mention her name, right, and certainly Ron's I mean, yes, well,
31:36
Speaker 3: poor Ron. I mean I think Ron, in my book,
31:39
Speaker 3: I thank him for standing up for Nicole, for he's
31:43
Speaker 3: sacrificing his life, Yeah, to try to protect her. It's
31:47
Speaker 3: obvious to me anyway. I looked at the evidence. I
31:50
Speaker 3: looked at what happened that Ron did his best and
31:54
Speaker 3: came into a you know, a crazy situation but tried
31:58
Speaker 3: to protect Nick and lost is life because of it.
32:01
Speaker 3: Nobody really gives him credit for that, But yeah, you're
32:04
Speaker 3: one hundred percent right. They really didn't. They didn't cover
32:08
Speaker 3: it was all about oj you know, yes.
32:11
Speaker 2: Which I mean I understand from a certain you know perspective,
32:16
Speaker 2: that is the trial itself. But I feel like this
32:21
Speaker 2: is this is a problem with a lot of these
32:23
Speaker 2: stories when they are when they become TV series and movies,
32:27
Speaker 2: that it's all about the perpetrator and the bad guys,
32:32
Speaker 2: and like the victims themselves, which are usually women, are
32:37
Speaker 2: not We just don't get a full picture of who
32:40
Speaker 2: they are. And I'm I'm so grateful to you for
32:44
Speaker 2: sharing that with us, but for writing this book to
32:47
Speaker 2: really give people a sense of who she is and
32:51
Speaker 2: who she was.
32:52
Speaker 3: I really wanted people to see Sidonnicle. I didn't just
32:57
Speaker 3: write it to sensationalize the stalking and the behavior of OJ,
33:02
Speaker 3: because a lot of that stuff's well documented. Like I said,
33:05
Speaker 3: I wrote it because I wanted the people to feel
33:08
Speaker 3: like we had a relationship and that Nick was a
33:11
Speaker 3: human being. Yes, she was a loving, caring, wonderful mother
33:15
Speaker 3: and person, and she doesn't get credit for that. She's
33:18
Speaker 3: a victim. To most people, she's not even a human being,
33:22
Speaker 3: and that's sad. Right to the book to humanize her.
33:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, this has been such a fascinating conversation and we
33:30
Speaker 2: are just getting started. There is a lot more to
33:33
Speaker 2: unpack about OJ Simpson and Keith's relationship with him and
33:37
Speaker 2: Nicole and the trial. So we are going to pick
33:40
Speaker 2: it right back up on our next episode.